


Tell It To The Whispering Winds

by TheManyFacesofJester



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, 00QReverseBang, Arthurian AU, Basically a cluster of like a zillion legends in one, Knights - Freeform, M/M, No Dragons though, by special request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5754703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheManyFacesofJester/pseuds/TheManyFacesofJester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of his last living family member's death, Q, methodical and clever, makes plans to seek out his brother's murderer. Searching for answers, closure and revenge Q enlists in the aid of an ex-knight going by the name of Bond who always seems to know just slightly more than he's telling. Murder, mystery and magic follow the two on their journey as they try to rediscover the secret to their own happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell It To The Whispering Winds

**Author's Note:**

> _If thou dost but tell it to the whispering winds it is sufficient to spread it through the whole world ~ Tom a'Lincoln_
> 
> Well! This has been an exciting journey through and through! I loved writing this and hope everyone enjoys reading it! This is my second year doing the [00Q Reverse Bang](http://00qreversebang.tumblr.com/) and I am rearing to go for year three! 
> 
> So, now on to thank you's! First a thank you to the wonderful [lamb](http://adreaminglamb.tumblr.com/) for drawing the art prompt for this fic, a picture I fell in love with the moment I saw! Another massive shout-out to my long-suffering beta Castillion for putting up with my nonsense and sifting through this whole story so I could end up posting something halfway decent! Thank you to both of them for entertaining my many emails, comments, eccentrics and my over-excitable nature. You're the best!
> 
> [Art Prompt](http://adreaminglamb.tumblr.com/post/137546457957/part-of-my-artworks-for-00q-reverse-bang)

_It hasn’t stopped yet. Raining, pouring, hurting. Nothing is making this better. Numbers, think numbers. A million raindrops. A trillion blades of grass. One sun. One brother – Stop it! Uncountable stars, impossible heights, inevitable death – No! Eight planets, one earth, one life…_

Q’s eyes opened, bled dry of tears. His skin was tight from where the tears had touched before evaporating, and his throat was still dry from the effort of sobbing. Soft beneath his feet, the recently bothered soil made attempts to settle back into the ground, despite the lack of room now that a new companion was taking up space. Deep beneath the earth now lay a fresh body, still blood-stained and filthy from its exertions in life. Q had taken his brother’s body from the place he had been slain and had instead chosen a location unsullied by grief and blood. It had happened so fast and Q hadn’t known what to do until too late, and before anything could have been done the battle was over and the Man with the Lion was gone, leaving the body of Q’s brother where a living soul had once been. The ground had complied when Q had moved the body, never snagging his brother’s clothes once. Q’s tears had watered the grave he had made, and the earth, so moved, had replenished the site with grass at once.

He wanted to stay there, stay and die like Lancelot at Guinevere’s grave, but the sky would not let him and opened to pour out water, trying to force him to look for shelter. He sat there for what might have been days, or weeks, or perhaps just hours in the water, trying to outlast the sky, but the wind too joined the movement for motion and sent the trees yawning over Q and his brother’s grave.

_All right then. I understand. It is time to leave._

Q stood and the rain at last ceased. He took one step and the wind subsided. He sent  one last look over to the perfect grave before Q took another step, and another, and another, and did not stop for three days until he had exhausted himself beyond his limits and found himself desiring shelter at last.

Somewhere along the way a town came into view, and Q stumbled down to the quaint comfort of confined space. People trotted about around him, running errands and completing tasks. The crunch of gravel beneath human feet sounded so foreign after travelling by dirt road for so long, and he welcomed the smell of fresh bread from the baker. He saw the tidy, plump man placing trays out to cool on the windowsill, and Q almost – almost – turned to his brother to ask his opinion on the quality.  But he didn’t, because that would have been silly.

“What a blessing to have an end to that rain!” a woman squawked as she walked past.

“The florist was glad for it all at first, but heavens, then that wind came!” her companion added, a basket full of fabric swinging from the crook of her arm.

“-the sea’s too restless, I said. I said it’s too restless and you’re not going out. You think he listened?” Q slid past a stick-thin man smoking something foul-smelling while the eager listener sliced fish heads from their bodies. A wooden sign above the man proclaimed in water-stained letters

GREENE BROTHER’S INN AND PUB

Q’s pocket chimed with coin and he opened the door to see about something to eat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a hot meal. The pub was alive with colors and sounds: the thud of mugs on wooden tables; a high shriek of laughter from someone who had had too much; a murmur of voices colliding together as one to form nothing but white noise.

“Beer?” the innkeeper asked, leaning over the bar.

“No, thank you,” Q whispered, his voice splintering and cracking from lack of use. He cleared his voice and repeated himself, sounding louder, but not especially stronger. Q instead ordered a small ration of food and water then sat down at the only empty table in the whole establishment.

_My first meal without him. What a silly thing to think… I suppose there shall be a lot of firsts without him. Shall I recount each of them as it happens? What a terrible burden it is to grieve._

“He’s not a knight, he’s just some mad waft who never leaves his house!”

“I saw his armor! He came to town right after King Arthur disappeared! He was still covered in blood from the Battle of Camlann! I saw it!”

“Saw it? You also ‘saw’ Jon talk to a raven last week. You’re as mad as that hermit is!”

_A knight? From the Battle of Camlann? What a lonely way to return. The numbers of the dead on that field were so vast I could feel it from miles away._

“He is a knight, and I’m not mad, and Jon did talk to that raven, as a matter ‘a fact.” The two men continued to prattle on, arguing back and forth the legitimacy of this alleged knight. They discussed the battle where Arthur was lost and every good man fell, save one knight: Sir Bedivere, who survived and threw Arthur’s sword back into the sea. The smaller of the men believed this hermit on the outskirts of town to be said knight. The slightly larger of the two claimed otherwise and the pair of them went at it for nearly an hour, never reaching a definite conclusion about the identity of this mysterious fellow.

Q had found himself paying more and more attention to the two men’s words, neglecting his meal almost entirely. He thought of his brother and the Man with the Lion. He thought of a dead man and the man who had killed him, and grief began turning to fury. In his anguish, Q had forgotten about the concept of vengeance, but the universe had gifted him a reminder. There are ways to right the wrongs of the past, it whispered on the wisps of candle flame. There are tears that can start a flood.

“Excuse me!” Q leaned closer to the men. His voice was still as weak as it had been when he had walked in, but he could try and make it louder at least. “Gentlemen!” Both men responded to being addressed in such a manner and swiveled on their benches to look at the person calling to them. “The man you’re talking about. Do you know where he lives?”

“Where he- Now why would anyone care about where that hermit lives?” the larger one exclaimed, much to the dismay of the smaller.

“I have business with him that needs attending.”

“So he _is_ a knight! I told you! Didn’t I tell you! You heard me, I told him so!” the small, high-pitched one shouted, still not answering Q’s original question.

“He didn’t say he’s a knight, he just said he needs to see him, you daft idiot. He’s on the south edge of town, in the brown house with the broken roof. Let me show you on the map.” Q listened carefully as the larger man pointed to  a soiled map that hung on the wall of the inn and gave explicit direction on where to find the house.

_He must be of great interest if everyone knows how to get to his house on the map. Or everyone else has want of gossip._

Q thanked the man and finished his meal quickly, ordering rations to go before embarking on his journey to the south end of the little town. The men had seemed unsure of the hermit’s knighthood, but Q wasn’t. The wind had changed, the air was pure sweetness, and the earth was making a promise that a true knight of King Arthur’s court waited in the house of the hermit.

The journey took less than two hours, and was rather enjoyable compared to Q’s previous walks by himself. On the way he counted blades of grass, gusts of wind, and clouds in the sky, among other natural wonders he passed. It was a gift to be able to see the world of nature in numbers. The grass, the winds, the clouds: they wanted to be counted; to be recognized as individuals that made up a collective whole.

Q continued as the houses got more and more scarce, and then stopped appearing at all. Except, that is, for one tattered house. Walls of timber and twigs that just barely stayed in place held up a broken roof, as promised by the large man at the Greene Brothers Inn. A pathway of trodden grass led up to a tilted door that must have let quite a draft in during the windier months.

_The winds have stopped. This is my choice and they know it._

A few more steps and Q was at the tilted door. A breath and he was knocking. The thud of his knuckles on the wood thundered through the tiny house, everything shuddering from the disturbance. The door went unanswered for several minutes, so Q tried again. And again. And still no one answered. The man at the door pondered his new set of choices.

_I could leave. I could forget the whole terrible idea and walk back my brother’s grave and die there. I could keep walking and live without him forever. Or I could try the door. If no one is there then I have done no wrong, but if someone is there, if Sir Bedivere is there, then we go forward from there. Yes, the latter is best._

So Q tried the handle, and with a sweep of wind, the door opened. Inside was dark and unkempt, but not in the usual sense of the word. Nothing was strewn about, no tittle-tattle of assorted items were scattered on the floor, but the place was still a mess anyway, with dust resting in thick patches on the floor and cobwebs contaminating every corner of the room.

“Is anyone here?” Q tried to shout, his voice cracking from the exertion. Silence was the expected response, and yet a sound followed. There was movement from a chair in the corner of the room, the darkest part of the house. “Sir?”

“Not anymore,” a voice responded. It sounded older than the body it was attached to. Blond hair topped the frowning face of a man who was not pleased at being disturbed from his sulking. “Just come right in, don’t bother knocking.”

“I did knock!” Q replied smartly.

“Sure.”

“Several times, actually. You must have been too busy completing your regularly scheduled routine of doing nothing to notice.” Q was contemplating how he should learn to keep his mouth shut when there was a laugh from the other side of the room.

“Did anyone ever tell you how impertinent you are?” Whoever this man was, he was rude, boorish, unpleasant, surly and insulting. Q liked him excessively.

“No. They might have said I was impertinent, but they never said how much.”

There was another laugh as the man stood up and began to walked towards Q. As the knight came into view Q noted how he was just as tall as he had expected him to be, but  the opposite of Q’s expectations in every other regard. In his mind, Q had anticipated an older knight, one who could still fight of course, but who was perhaps past his prime. That was not the person who was greeting Q. Instead, the potential knight was maybe 10 or so years older than Q and in the best shape of his life, with disheveled blond hair and a face strewn with several scars.

“Is there some reason why you’re here besides breaking and entering for the fun of it?” the other man asked inquisitively, looking Q up and down while he said it.

“Yes, I always knock before I break into someone’s home. It’s called courtesy,” Q quipped back before remembering why he was here. “Actually, I came here looking for you.” That seemed to surprise the blond man slightly, but his expression changed to one of understanding.

“Let me guess. You heard a rumor and decided to prove it for yourself. No, you made a bet with a friend and want to make a little extra money! Or was it a dare?”

“No. I need your help.” That came out sounding more dramatic than Q had intended, but he continued anyway. “Are you Sir Bedivere?” There was a snort and the man turned away from Q. He looked like he was trying to stare out the window to avoid Q’s gaze, but the fact that the window was boarded up negated this point. “Does that mean yes?”

“That means I can’t help you if that’s who you’re looking for.” Bedivere had made it across the room so the two were now face to face while Q tried to decipher what the other man had meant.

_The wind never lies._

“No. You are Sir Bedivere and I know it, and I need your help.”

“My name is James Bond and I have nothing to do with Sir Bedivere!”

“Yes, you do! I know you do!”

“How?” the man calling himself Bond shouted.

“The wind told me.”

“The wind?” Bond looked somewhere between amused and confused. “You’re part fae, aren’t you?” he said eventually. Q nodded. “How much?”

“My mother is the Fairy Queen.”

“The Queen? A lot then, I’m presuming. So what could you need me for?” Bond had come back towards him, looking him over once again, as if he should have known a creature of magic when he saw one. Q let him look. There was nothing extraordinary to be seen compared to other magical beings.

“My brother is dead.” The words slipped out without any context. Q let the silence build between him and Bond before he could say anything else. He wished there was wind indoors to comfort him. He wished his brother was there to tell him what to say. He had always been better with words. “He was unjustly killed by a Man with a Lion for no reason, and I want to find him.”

“And kill him?”

“Yes,” Q said definitively.

“What would you need me for?”

“I can’t find him by myself. My brother always did the fighting; he was better at it than I was, a lot braver too. Sure, I can fight well enough, I mean, I can hold a sword... Actually, I really can’t fight at all, and I’m going to die if I try and do this by myself.”

The older knight had a puzzled expression on his face and Q wondered if he was trying to figure out whether to laugh at or pity the person in front of him.

“I don’t do that anymore. Arthur’s Round Table is gone. I’m not a knight anymore; I’m just a man.”

“A man who can fight! A man who can talk his way out of a difficult situation. That’s all I need.” Q was at begging point now, but he didn’t care. If his brother had been here he could have talked Bedivere into it. He could talk his way through anything.

_If he was here, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I have to learn to do this by myself._

The knight appeared to be considering Q and his current position, breathing deep and grinding his teeth. He clearly did not want to do this, but he also seemed to be slightly wonderstruck by the person in front of him.

“Well, how much are you willing to pay me?”

Q had not considered this part of the equation. He had been so lost in convincing Bedivere, or Bond, to come that he had forgotten about payment. He had some money with him from his travels with his brother, but nothing worthy enough to give a knight for his service.

_The wind is rising. It’s picking up outside the window. It’s going east now. East towards my home._

“Fairy Land!” Q suddenly said.

“Excuse me?”

“My fortune is on Fairy Land. I can give you however much you want when we reach it.” There were enough gold, silver and precious jewels on that island to keep any man satisfied. “Currency is not used there, just collected. Take whatever you want.”

“Who said anything about going to Fairy Land? I thought we were looking for your brother’s killer?”

Q didn’t like how quickly those words rolled out of his mouth. His brother was worthy of honor; of stretched out syllables and pauses between reference to him and reference to his murderer. It sounded commonplace and regular when one said it too fast.

Bond was waiting for an answer.

“That’s where we have to go first,” Q told him. “I don’t know who the Man with the Lion is, or where he is, for that matter. We’ll never find him without magic, and mine is strongest in my homeland. In the House of Holiness is the only place I can see the past and discover how to find him. Then we go after him.”

Bond seemed to almost say something, but shut his mouth. Fairy Island was a promised land of treasures, but men rarely went and even more rarely left. The island was purely inhabited by women who occasionally bred with the men who visited before sending them off towards their homes empty-handed. Bond looked as though he were wondering if that was how the person in front of him had come about: a casual fling by the Queen with a sea-faring stranger.

Q imagined a struggle of powers was occurring in the knight’s mind: greed and ambition over safety and grief. The knight had lost everything and everyone he loved in the Battle of Camlann. The same sadness that had caused Q to take pause over his brother’s grave was the same one permeating James’ body, keeping him trapped in a shoddy house away from the world. Bond had no wind to remind him that going forward is the only way to honor the past.

_What would I do if he was asking it of me? If I were back at the grave, trapped by sorrow? I think I would say no. Not for all the money in the world would I leave his grave. I can offer gold to a greedy man, but I can offer nothing to a heartbroken one._

There was no answer, and Q decided he understood. The musty air had become thicker and grew more painful for Q to breathe in. He had to leave this house.

“It’s all right. I’ve asked you a difficult task during a difficult time. I can find someone else. Stay, get well again, and perhaps I will see you when I return.” Q bowed the way he should have when he had come in and turned towards the door that seemed more parallel on the inside than it had on the out.

“No.”

“What?” Q turned to see Bond taking steps to follow him out the door.

“I’ll go with you.”

“Really!” Q said, trying not to act as relieved as he felt. The air was lighter now; he could breathe right again.

“I can’t avenge anyone I lost,” Bond said bitterly. “But I have a chance to avenge your brother, and that’s good enough for me.”

Sweet relief swept through Q, like the breeze he was waiting to greet. Afternoon light streaked through gaps in the house’s rotting window shudders as Bond stuck out his hand in agreement.

“I wish to be addressed as James Bond, not anything else,” the knight said as he waited for Q’s hand to clasp his own. Those were terms that could be agreed to.

“As you wish. I am Q.”

“Q?”

“Mhm. Why, is that odd?”

“A little. Does it stand for anything?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Is _that_ odd?”

“Yes.”

Q wanted to say _Oh_ , but the word had been said already, so he decided to shut his mouth and take Bond’s hand. Hands were shaken and the deal was struck. Q would have a companion for his journey. He made inquiries regarding when the two would be leaving, to which Bond responded that they could leave immediately. He had nothing to collect before they left. Q didn’t either. Neither of them dwelled on that too much.

Within moments, the two had walked out the shoddy front door of Bond’s shack and were stepping out into the late afternoon air. A saturated sunset dripped light across the trees that surrounded the hovel. The two made little conversation as Bond led the way towards the harbor he had come to this land from. He mentioned that they would be hard-pressed to find a ship to take them to Fairy Land, but they could try nonetheless. Q knew better. They would likely have to steal one to get there. Perhaps Bond knew so much as well.

_47 grey stones. 103 red flowers. 59 oak trees. The wind has stopped. I should have liked to count bursts of wind better. Those listen better than-_

“Why do you look like that sometimes?” Bond interrupted Q’s train of thought. Q hadn’t even noticed he was looking at him.

“Look like what?”

“Like you’re anywhere else but here,” Bond said. No one had ever paid much attention to Q’s expression. Even his brother had ignored him when they were walking. He had known Q’s habits.

“I’m counting,” Q responded finally, noticing Bond was waiting for an answer.

“Counting what?”

“Everything,” Q said. “The rocks, the flowers, the grass, rays of sunlight, gusts of wind.”

Bond studied him for a minute to see if he was in earnest or not.“Why?”

“I don’t know. They ask me to, I guess.”

“They?” Bond asked as he continued walking.

“Yes. The rocks and trees and such. It makes them feel important.” Bond laughed and Q ignored it.

“So you can talk to trees, is that what I’m hearing.”

“It’s not like that. Fae are connected to nature. We live within one another. I in them, them in me. When I was little I started to count them and they let me know they liked it.”

“Let you know?” Bond sure was inquisitive for a man who’d barely wanted to talk to Q earlier.

“Is there an echo?” Q asked, annoyed. No one was ever interested in why he did things. They just accepted that he could, or believed he couldn’t and moved on. His brother had been that way.

“I agreed to travel with you, but I don’t know anything about you, Fairy Knight.”

“My name is Q.”

“And my name was Bedivere. People change.” Q didn’t understand, but he didn’t press the matter.

_People change. Like the wind. And the weather. Like dirt when it’s moved. Like grass when it grows. Change: Life and Death and the moments in between. People change._

Bond turned around several times to study Q. Q didn’t really notice, and Bond never let him know, and that’s how they traveled until they reached the harbor. Ships built of every wood available sat on the sea, swaying as they rested in place, awaiting travelers. People hurried about, like in the town previous. The only difference was purpose. People in that town had dawdled about, conversing with one another as they completed their daily tasks. People here were different. They shouted orders instead of speaking, rushing to and fro with no time for straggling. Everyone had a purpose.

Sea shells brought in by travelers and the wind crunched underfoot as the pair hurried along. Q had seen the ocean before, with his brother, when they traveled. The waves were always higher when Q arrived, the wind persuading Q to journey onward with their aid. He’d always loved the sound of them crashing against the shore, but today he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear the water at all.

“I’ll talk to some of the captains while I’m getting supplies. See if any of them owe me a favor. Don’t go anywhere.” Bond didn’t give Q a chance to respond before he went off, leaving Q by himself in the center of the harbor town.

“—the wind’ll have to pick up if you be wantin’ to leave any time soon!” A voice from another conversation drifted to Q.

_The wind has stopped. It’s been stopped here for a very long time. The town is full of it, but the harbor is lacking. How unpredictable the earth is._

“It’s been like this for ages! No one can leave the port unless the wind decides to play nice!”

Snippets of conversation danced about Q as he stood exactly where Bond had left him. Then he heard a grander voice above the din of the usual crowd.

“That’s all there is to it! If you can guess how many are in ’ere then she’s all yours.” A burly man with a silver and black beard was standing on a platform, gesturing to a small ship docked in the smallest port in the harbor while holding a large jar of stones. Q had been told not to move, but surely Bond would find him again. Neither of them really blended into a crowd.

As he approached the port he got a better look at the ship. It was small, made for a minimal crew and a short journey. The sail was bright white, like it had never been used before. The wood looked like it had never tasted the open sea. But the ship was old, Q could see that. Like it had been sitting still for longer than it should have. The ship bobbed along slightly from the motion created by people getting on and off other ships. Small waves sprayed the sides of the ship, but caused very little movement. The wind was to blame for that. Still, it was easier to see the ship’s name without the waves crashing against it.

THE CASTOR POLLUX

Q knew that legend. Two brothers, one immortal, one not. When Castor died, Pollux was so stricken with grief that he gave half his immortality to his brother, so they would live for half the year, and die for half the year, together.

_It’s an omen._

“Young man, you got any gold in your purse?” Q shifted his gaze from the ship. The burly man had now directed his spiel to Q.

“Sir?” He was sure he wasn’t about to be mugged, but he wasn’t sure how the question was relevant.

“I see you eyeing that ship. She’s a beauty, isn’t she! And she could be yours! For a small fee you can take a guess at how many stones are in this here jar. If you’re right, she’s all yours.” The man was smiling, speaking in a triumphant manner. To the ship-owner’s right there was a chest, halfway filled with gold pieces. Pieces from others who had guessed and lost.

“Why would anyone want to win a boat in a windless harbor!?” someone shouted. They acted like the prize was silly, but Q could tell they had tried to win it. Their hands held the stain of lost gold.

“Aw, shut it, Thomas! You’re just a sore loser!”

“It’s a cheat!” the shouting man proclaimed. “No one can guess those stones. No one ever has, and no one ever will, and you’re wasting your money!”

_He’s tried more than once._

“I can,” Q said casually.

“Excuse me?” The shouting man moved closer to Q. “You can what?”

“I can guess how many stones there are.” There was laughter from those who had lost already. The burly ship-owner didn’t laugh out loud, but smiled his amusement.

“Alright then. Three gold pieces per guess.”

“That’s all I’ll need,” Q said passively as he searched his pocket for money. He’d had more before, but all that remained now was three gold coins. He had enough for the guess, for sure, but not much left for anything else. He’d given most of it to Bond for supplies. He pulled three out and handed them to the burly man.

“Take a look!” the man said as he handed Q the jar, greedily taking the money for himself and dumping it into his chest.

Q pondered the jar intently, and knew immediately that something was off.

_It’s a scam. The outside is lined with big stones. But the inside has smaller ones. Little pebbles fill the middle, but only the big ones get shown. 26 big stones on the outside. 82 small ones on the inside. Everyone is guessing too few. Things aren’t always what they seem._

“108,” Q said.

The man’s face dropped. Three men standing around the chest of gold, clearly also aware of the stone-count, blanched.

“What?”

“108.”

The shouting man laughed out loud at the repeat.“108? Are you blind, boy!? You think they could fit 108 in that jar!”

“The outside has big stones, the middle has little stones. No one ever promised they were all the same size.” With that, Q handed the jar back to the slack-jawed ship-owner.“So it’s mine then. The ship.”

Q wasn’t asking, but the man didn’t answer anyway. Instead he got angry.

“You must have cheated. How could you know that! It’s impossible!” The burly man was rapidly raising his hand to Q when a punch threw him to the ground.

“Bond!” Q had never been more delighted to see anyone in his life.

“What are you doing!?”

Q thought Bond was shouting at him for a second, and almost answered before he realized he was yelling at the man on the ground. Q wondered why he had thought that the first person to get shouted at would be him.

“He cheated!” someone standing around the chest of gold shouted.

“I don’t care. He’s with me! You have an issue, you take it up with me first.” The burly man cowered. Bond had a presence to him that Q had never noticed. He’d been so weak-looking in the house where they’d met. He stood taller now, combat ready. His voice shook the stagnant ships and towered over their masts. He looked like the word power.

The burly man with the silver and black beard scrambled to his feet and towards his chest of gold.

“Fine! Take the ship! Enjoy the windless harbor, you skinny wretch!” The man threw a deed to Q before he and his crew stomped past. Everyone else left as well, some upset at having been swindled out of their money, but many curious about how the strange lanky boy with glossy eyes had known about the trick in the stones.

“What was that about?” Bond asked, using a rag to wipe the blood off of his now bruised hand.

_He didn’t even know why he was hitting him. He just did it. Even if I had been in the wrong. I like him even more._

“I got us a ship!” Q said, using the rolled-up deed to point to the small ship. He noticed he was trembling, but he wasn’t sure why. Maybe joy, from getting the ship, maybe fear, from almost being attacked, but there was something about the way Bond had gone after the ship-owner that made him feel odd.

“That’s our—How?”

“I’m good with numbers,” Q said stupidly. But Bond looked at the jar of stones, then gazed after the men with the chest of gold, and he put the ideas together.

“You’re good with numbers,” Bond agreed, and let the matter lie. He then directed Q towards several crates that had been dropped off at the dock. He must have left them there when he had gone to rescue Q. Together, the two grabbed the supplies and carried them onto their new ship.

“I thought you were yelling at me.” Q didn’t know why he said it, or why he even felt inclined to mention it.

“When?”

“When you went after the ship-owner. I thought you were yelling at me for leaving my spot.” Q had stopped trembling by now, but the feeling was still there.

“Why would I yell at you? You’re paying me to keep you safe.”

“Oh.” Q remembered their agreement, and something sad built in the base of his stomach.

_This is his job. It didn’t matter if I was wrong. He’s getting paid to protect me. Why did I think it was something else? Why would I want it to be?_

“Did your brother yell at you? If you didn’t listen to him?” Bond asked. Q hadn’t been expecting that question.

“Sometimes. I was supposed to listen to him. He was in charge, after all. He knew what he was doing. But not all the time.” It felt wrong, to be talking about his brother’s flaws. He was a decent person, even if he wasn’t always a good one. They didn’t call him the Black Knight out of affection. But he was dead, and the dead are supposed to be honored.

Q didn’t continue, and Bond didn’t ask him to, and both were glad for the silence. The ship was small, but well-built, a prize ship if there ever was one. It surely wasn’t made to be manned by only two men, but Q and Bond figured they could manage.

“We might be here a while,” Bond said at last, when the few crates had been loaded. “The wind hasn’t blown hard enough to get even a sailing ship out of this harbor. We’ll have to stay until it picks up.”

_He thinks the wind can’t hear him. He thinks it doesn’t listen. He doesn’t know how to ask._

“You’ve got that look again—” James started, but was cut off by a shush from Q.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. The wind is listening. Breathe in. Breathe out. The wind has heard._

There was a gust and the sails of the ship dropped into position. There was a breeze and they filled with air. Q didn’t open his eyes once; he just kept breathing, kept listening, kept asking and willing the wind to rise. Bond raced around him to untie the ship from the dock, tugging the thick rope onto the ship just in time for the largest burst of wind to direct the Castor Pollux out into the sea. Q imagined he heard noise from the harbor, cheers and whistles and the sound of every sail in the port taking a deep breath of wind and expanding for the sea.

The Castor Pollux drifted easily out towards the open ocean. The boat shook and rattled with the force of sailing for the first time. Wind sprayed spritzes of water onto the deck while Q remained balanced on the edge of the ship.

“Did you do that, Fairy Knight?” Bond asked, finally stopping his constant movement to stand beside Q.

“No. The winds did.”

“But you made it.”

“No one can make the winds do anything. But you can ask for their help,” Q told him, turning his gaze away from the disappearing harbor to Bond. Bond was also looking at Q, but he wasn’t studying him this time. Just looking.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just done trying to figure you out.” Q wasn’t sure if the knight meant the statement to be kind or cruel, but he decided it wasn’t meant to be either. It just was.

“I can navigate us to Fairy Land,” Q announced.

“Because you’re good with numbers?” Bond was catching on, it seemed.

“Yes.” With that, Bond and Q got the ship onto the correct course. It was difficult to man the ship with only the pair of them on board, but it wasn’t impossible. The wind helped the best it could, and the waves were companionable when it was required. Nature loved Q, and he loved Nature back. They did not do favors for each other, but rather aided one another out of mutual admiration and respect. No payback would ever be necessary between them.

The sun was gone by the time the ship set off, it having already been quite late in the afternoon by the time Bond and Q had set out. Underneath the deck of the ship there was one large room, for the Captain, a smaller one, for the First Mate, and posts from which hammocks were meant to be hung to bed the rest of the crew.

“You take the Captain’s room,” Q told Bond when they were finally ready for sleep. Q had promised that the ship would be safe enough, even if both of them went to bed. The sea would warn him if trouble arose. Bond gazed over at the largest of the rooms. Crimson decorations befitting a Captain covered the room. Curtains draped around the small window that looked out into the ocean. An empty wooden desk rested beside the bed, nailed permanently to the floor to keep it from swaying, much like everything else on the ship. The First Mate’s quarters were directly adjacent to the Captain’s, with a window between the two that had a wooden panel which could be opened and shut if conversation was required. Green was the color of choice for the First Mate’s room, the bed-spread and curtains both an emerald shade. Both rooms were devoid of any personal items, having never been used, and Q didn’t imagine they would ever be filled with many more objects.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of this expedition?” Bond joked, tossing him a smile full of charm.

“I’m used to the smaller rooms. But fine, if you want the lesser of the two, be my guest,” Q threw back, though he was already depositing himself on the First Mate’s bed. Bond also made his way to his room and lay down. Neither of them took off their shoes.

_That’s what people do, isn’t it, when they feel safe? They take off their shoes at night. My brother did that. He always felt safe._

Q didn’t get a chance to say good-night before he fell asleep. He wasn’t sure he would have planned on saying it anyway. Maybe if Bond had said it first.

_I’m not in the ship anymore. I’m me, but this isn’t where I left myself. There’s grass here, and air that lacks salt. My brother…_

The Black Knight’s sword crashed down upon a smaller man’s. Both of their helmets were up, but Q knew his brother’s armor too well, black all over and thicker than any man’s. The other man’s armor was unfamiliar, silver and grey with a beige crest on the center. Swords cracked and clanged against one another as both fighters practically danced around a water basin. Q tried to feel for the wind, tried to count out the blades of grass, but it was like they didn’t want to be counted. Like they didn’t know they could be. He tried to move, but it was impossible.

_My mind is here, and my body is elsewhere._

Without feeling the wind, Q could tell it was there. Wind accompanied by rain that poured down in sheets. The grass grew limp and weary from the pounding of water against itself and bowed to the sky as thunder clapped over the two knights. But the storm did not deter the fighters, who swung at each other with more force than before, making up for how heavy their armor was becoming against the force of the storm. The wind was working against both men, and for neither, badgering them further and closer without a preference. Still, one man had the upper hand, and with a crack of his sword against the smaller knight’s helmet the Black Knight stood victorious. The little one moved slightly, groaning in pain, but ready to face his imminent death. A sword was raised by his brother and Q screamed for him to stop.

And yet, no one died. Instead, the raised sword was tossed to the side and a hand reached out to help the littler one up to his feet. The silver knight took the hand and clambered up, removing his helmet to nurse his injured skull.

_The Man with the Lion? No. No, not quite. His face is similar. His jaw is structured just right, and his nose has the same crook, but he isn’t right. No, not quite right._

Q could see mouths moving, but could hear no words, and yet he understood. His brother was telling the silver and beige knight to leave. Telling him not to come back. He pointed to the basin as he spoke, and Q tried to remember why that basin seemed familiar. The little Lion-Man-Faced knight looked scared, and tired, the side of his face dripping with the blood let loose from the impact of the sword. The Black Knight shouted. The little knight ran. The storm began to settle.

_Something is wrong. Something happened here that shouldn’t have. Something happened here that led my brother to his death. This is where is all falls apart._

“Q! Q, it’s just a dream!” Q felt the scream coming out of his mouth before he heard himself. The ship was rocking violently and Q reached out to grab a stabilizer. His hand felt warm flesh and he latched on, trying to calm down. Trying to stay still. Bond didn’t seem to mind, or at least didn’t say anything against Q resting in his arms.

Thunder rumbled outside the ship as the noise of rain splashing across the deck pummeled through the ceiling.

_A storm in my dream, a storm out at sea. The sky wanted me to see what I saw, to know what I do now, little as it is. Maybe the sky wants the truth as badly as I do._

Q could hear a heartbeat through Bond’s chest. It was louder than the thunder, but quieter also. Perspective was like that sometimes.

“I saw my brother,” Q whispered, finally, into the shirt his face was pressed into.

“His ghost?”

“His past.”

“His death?”

“His life.”

“Then why did it frighten you?”

“Because I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what the sky wants me to know.”

Lightning flashed and Q shuddered. He remembered The Man with the Lion. He remembered his brother. He remembered his past, plus one scene more. What did the sky know that he didn’t?

Q didn’t remember going back to sleep any more than he remembered Bond leaving his room, but it must have happened because he woke up by himself. His dream seemed far away now, in the sunlight of a fresh morning. Far away and unimportant, exactly the opposite of what it was. But mornings had a way of dulling the senses, and for once Q didn’t mind. He counted the wind. He counted the waves. He counted the planks of wood made to build the boat. He counted nails and crates and windows and everything he could to bring himself back down to earth; to separate himself from the sky.

Crisp dawn crawled across the ocean, clawing its way through the air and sunlight.

“You seem better,” Bond said without looking at Q as he arrived on the deck.

“I am, I think. I’m sorry about last night. Did I keep you up long?”

“No. You fell asleep again pretty fast and didn’t make a noise the rest of the night.” Q assumed he would have made more noise after he’d gone back to sleep, but the knight seemed to be in earnest. Dawn had flooded the deck of the ship as an island appeared in the distance.

“Home,” Q whispered. He would know the island of his birth in the hardest of rain and the darkest of night. He would know it at the end of the world.

“So that’s Fairy Land? Smaller than I expected.”

“That’s because we’re hundreds of yards away, Bond.”

“That’s not what I meant— are you always this impish?”

“Impish?” Q responded with mock offense. “If this is impish then you’re intolerable.”

“I see your ‘intolerable’ and I raise you ‘irritating’.”

“Incorrigible knight!”

“Impetuous fairy.” Bond was smiling.

“Impetuous,” Q agreed. Q was smiling too.

It took less than an hour before they reached Fairy Land. The wind of the storm had been dangerous, but strong, swiftly sailing the Castor Pollux towards the island it desired to dock at. Bond didn’t say it out loud, but Q could see that at least a part of him was excited to visit Fairy Land. Or if not excited, then certainly intrigued by the potential for all he might see on the island. Q hoped he wasn’t disappointed. That was important to him all of a sudden.

The dock was excessively large, despite how few ships ever actually stopped there. The initial image one noticed upon arrival to Fairy Land was how clean everything was. The dock, untouched for who knows how many years, was spotless. No barnacles anywhere, no seaweed trapped on the deck, and the wood of the dock showed no wear and tear from the waves. It looked fresh, new, and impossible.

_Home._

Q leapt off the boat the moment land was within sight. He thought of the storm, the Beige knight, the Man with the Lion, and his brother.

_There are answers on this island. There are solutions on this island. There is resolution here._

Bond followed behind fairly swiftly, though Q had left him to perform all the menial tasks associated with docking a ship while he re-accustomed himself to his surroundings. Everything looked much the same as it had been before he had left with his brother.

_He just showed up one day. He had sailed with my late father’s directions to the island to find me. The wind was softer then. It was humming instead of whistling, anticipating adventure, I believe. I wish I could go back. Back to then, back to him, back to how we were. Three wishes. Three impossible dreams. Three lonely memories._

“Sure, just go on ahead. I’ll handle everything,” Bond scolded when he finally caught up to Q. Waves sputtered and splashed behind the pair of them as they looked out onto the expanse of the island before them. Again, everything was clean. The trees looked like they had been scrubbed clean, the bark shining like polished leather, the brilliant green leaves appearing vibrant, but stiff, as if they were glued in position. Nothing but grass littered the forest floor, with every blade existing the exact same distance apart from the other.

“Tidy,” James commented as he looked around. Q eyed the older man pensively. The knight looked bewildered by his surroundings, but not disappointed. This was clearly not what he had been expecting, but it was mysteriously wondrous.

Eventually, Q began taking steps forward through the barrage of neatly spaced trees. It was like walking through a living chessboard, every piece poised to move but standing still in its designated position. Q knew they should be walking with haste, but instead he and Bond strolled leisurely. Q felt whimsical to be back on his island. He counted leaves, trees and branches. He counted rocks, streams and pebbles. He counted Bond’s breathes, steps and blinks. He assumed it was because he had run out of other things to count. James took one step in front of the other, going straight forward, but Q was meandering, touching trees, taking steps at an uneven pace. His shoulder kept bumping into Bonds’, on accident at first, but Q noticed that the knight smiled every time he did it, so Q started doing it on purpose until Bond bumped him back.

“It looks good one you, Fairy Knight,” Bond commented.

“What does?”

“That smile.” Bond looked smug. Q blushed ever so slightly. “I hadn’t seen it until now. You’re glad to be here?”

“There were good memories here. This is where my brother found me. He came with no other purpose besides taking me to travel with him. I had never even met him before. He was so adamant that we go off together.”

“You grew up here?”

“I was born here, raised here, everything. My father traveled here a long time ago. He and his crew ended up here on one of their adventures and he met my mother, the Queen. She had seen men every so often, those who were overzealous and wished to exploit the island, but she had never met any man like him. She loved him so very much, and I like to pretend he loved her as well, but that really wasn’t quite true. He left with his company, but promised to return on his way back. Except, on his journey, he met Anglitora, who he made his wife. Still, he did attempt to return, as promised, but the waves played a cruel trick and it appeared that he was passing the island by. My mother was devastated and threw herself into the sea to drown. He and his men found her body, though, and they took it with them to be buried with full honors. My brother took me to visit the grave. It’s beautiful. They did a marvelous job on it, but she should have been buried here, with her people. I should not have had to travel to grieve for her.”

Bond listened and walked as Q told his story, doing very little else. No head bobs, no hums of approval or discontent; he just listened.

_This is more information than he asked for. I should have shared less._

“Why did your father not take you with him?” Bond finally said. This perplexed Q. Bond had been listening, for certain, but nothing in his manner had indicated that he cared about what he was hearing. His question, however, indicated that he did. Q felt his heart leap, just a little, at the notion that Bond valued what he had to say.

“Oh, well, I suppose he didn’t know about me.”

“And you never went looking for him?”

“I was a child when my mother died. By the time I was old enough to think about it, my brother had come and told me he had died.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Nothing. What did you say your father’s name was?”

“I didn’t, but it was Tom. Tom a’Lincoln, I believe. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

_Odd thing to wonder. Why should such a story be of such interest? I wish I could read him like the wind._

“Did her death make you king?” Bond asked. Another good question.

“No,” Q responded. “A man cannot rule Fairy Land. That isn’t how it works. There was talk of choosing someone else to rule, but no one could think of any reason why a ruler was needed, so they went without. It doesn’t sound like it would work, but we are fae, and mortal ideas of governing a society do not seem to apply, especially to an island inhabited only by women.”

“Women and you.”

“Yes. Women and me, for a while.” The conversation had turned informational instead of playful and Q wished it would change back, but before he knew it there was a clearing in the pristine forest and the sites of a village came into view. Q could see movement inside the the houses, even from a distance, but knew no one would come out to greet him. That was Bond’s fault, really. They might have come out to see Q if he were by himself, but this was the second time an unknown man in the company of Q had shown up on the island, the first being his brother. The women would be right to assume the man with him is not a pleasure seeker and they would leave them to their business.

Perfectly placed houses were positioned precisely the right distance from one another. Each house, however, was startlingly different from the others. Metal wind chimes made from silverware cluttered every part of a small, pure white house to the left, poles protruding from random parts of the outside walls to allow for the wind chimes to hang around the house at varying levels. Meanwhile, the house to the right was hidden behind green vines and foliage. The window and door seemed to be spilling a garden that crept around the whole of the house, showcasing flowers and shrubbery of all sorts.

“They represent the specialty of the person inside,” Q said as they passed more interesting and unique domains.

“Magic specialties?”

“Yes. All fae have one. All have to do with nature though, of course.”

“Of course,” Bond quipped back. “So what did your home look like?”

“Are you trying to casually ask what my specialty is?”

“Yes.” A blunt answer. Q liked that. It suited James Bond.

“Well, what do you think it is?” Q was getting playful again. The House of Holiness was within his sights, but he figured his remaining time with Bond should be put to good use. Bond appeared to be debating.

_He’s thinking over the past. He’ll remember what I said about the wind. He’ll recall that I counted the rocks, the flowers, the grass, rays of sunlight, gusts of wind. He’ll try to understand what all of that means. I like watching him try to figure me out._

“It is something to do with nature. And I am willing to bet it has something to do with counting.”

_Getting warm._

“I am failing to see a connection between the two. But, you are part human, so I am willing to bet your specialty is human in nature.” That was a pun. Q laughed, and so did Bond.

_Not so warm._

“Have you hurt yourself from thinking too hard?”

“No, but I’m close to hurting you,” he muttered, likely because he hadn’t figured it out yet.

“Arithmancy. It’s the practice of magic through numbers.”

“Would’ve got it eventually.”

Q tried to think of something to say back, but his eyes had come to view a large crystal castle. The grass leading up to the building turned from bright green to shining white, each with three perfect diamond dew drops on each blade. The white grass led up to a palace of pure crystal, with Ionic pillars and a running frieze made of amethyst depicting several scenes, each detailing important moments from the history of Fairy Land.

_My birth is up there in the darkest violet. The Crystal Mage placed it there the moment I occurred. The second I came to exist. I could feel the number of pictures on the frieze change when I emerged into being. The wind blew faster and harder and pushed the grass .6 degrees to the left. The grass had never swayed an inch from its perfect position, as a promise from the wind, but the breeze had grown excited, and so the grass had shifted, and it had not moved since. I could tell._

Under the frieze was a majestic doorway which was as vaguely translucent as the other walls. The interior could be seen from the outside looking in, and while the exterior was colored with bright white crystals and dull purple amethysts, the inside was filled with colorful moving figures.

“Peacocks,” Q said absently.

“What?”

“The colors inside, they’re peacocks.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Bond said, now looking into the building to see the colorful moving shapes. “Why would I have noticed?”

“I don’t know. I just thought you would have.”

“You know this is a castle made out of crystal. With white grass. You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“I just wanted you to know— Incorrigible Idiot.” Q mumbled the last bit, but Bond heard it anyway and banged his shoulder into Q.

“Irritating Imbecile.”

“Irrelevant Inbred Impugnable I-”

“Are you done yet?”

“I wasn’t, but I’m good.”

Bond had stopped moving and Q had stopped moving and both men stood outside the walls of the castle.

“What are you going to do inside there?” Bond asked, already knowing he would not be permitted inside.

“Think. Concentrate. Remember what the wind saw,” Q answered. “Explore the island if you want. Be careful.” Bond nodded and stepped away from the door. Q wanted to wonder what the old Knight would do while he was inside the House of Holiness, but his thoughts wandered to the Man with the Lion. He wished they had wandered to his brother first, but they hadn’t, so he opened the door and marched inside the sparkling doorway.

_The wind is gone, like brothers and mothers and fathers. No, the wind will return when the doors open. The same cannot be said about family._

Q walked past a cluster of brightly colored peacocks, the only males on the island besides Bond and Q, and made his way deeper and deeper into the House of Holiness. The building was a castle, once home to the Queen, but it was a spiritual place as well, at least parts of it. Q counted as he walked, but as he went deeper through the halls he found himself losing count.

_I never lose count. I never can’t count. Go back, go back, go back. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Where is the wind to guide me? What is waiting ahead? How did my brother stand this; not knowing what may be waiting ahead?_

Chandeliers of pure glass hung low from the ceiling as Q came upon the Menagerie of Mirrors. The room was in the exact center of Fairy Land. The door swung open as Q reached it and slammed behind him as he entered. Mirrors lined the room from wall to wall, covering all 6 sides of the unique room with mirrors in a addition to the ceiling and floor. Other mirrors littered the area; reflective surfaces of every size imaginable filling as much space as possible, save a small spot in the exact center. Q stumbled as he walked over, his thoughts already tangled up.

_Concentrate. You have not been here in years. Concentrate! Focus your memories. Relax. Focus…_

Q sat and breathed in and out and tried to calm down, but he couldn’t think, or count, or get control of his mind at all. The magic of the House was pressing down on him, as if the weight of the room was resting on his mind. The room had a habit of doing that. The point was to make memories return to the front of one’s mind, to bring out personal epiphanies, to reveal histories unseen by those who wish to see them, but the magic could not focus on a particular memory; that was up to the Fae inside.

_Celia watches the ship pass, despite the promise made to her so long ago. A son waits for her in her palace, but Tom is leaving her; mocking her by sailing past with no intention of stopping. She wishes her tears could start a storm, but the weather never listens to her the way it listens to her son. The Queen writes a note and pins it to her chest, and then steps forward again and again and again until she has reached the water’s edge and yet she keeps walking and walking and walking. The water is up to her waist, then her neck, then above her head. Her feet are lead as she keeps walking and willing herself to stay below the water. He lied to her. His son will be the same. Water presses and her lungs give out and she opens her mouth to take a deep breath. The water is never ending, like the ache in her soul, so the water will free her from such pain._

A shriek builds up in Q’s lungs and chest as his mind attempts to reroute his thoughts to the Man with the Lion. He doesn’t want to see his mother die, that isn’t what he’s here for. He wishes to see the Man with the Lion. His wish is answered.

_Golden sunlight pools outside a thick, white stone wall, gathering to shine on the two men fighting, one Black Knight with armor thicker than any other man’s could be and one in shining silver armor with a lion by his side. Swords crashed and clashed and clanged and rang out across the empty field. The Man with the Lion was swinging with furor and passion while the Black Knight, even with his helmet down, seemed confused and thrown off. Both men were fighting, but only one seemed invested in the battle. Another crash of metal, and Q’s brother was off balance, collapsing on the ground. But he had time, he could pick up his sword and stand again, he was always fast enough to get back up if he fell, and yet he stalled. He pulled off his helmet. He opened his mouth to ask the questions of Who are you and What do you want, but the words were never allowed to come out. The lion leapt and scratched at the Black Knight’s face, landing on the knight’s chest as his did so, while the Man with the Lion picked up the other knight’s sword. The lion leapt out of the way, the knight in black flinched, and his own sword of protection became the instrument of his death._

Q was actively screaming, the same way he had when he had seen the fight in person. He should have been faster, he should have stopped the fight, but his brother had always been able to handle himself, had always told him to stay out of the way in a battle. His brother had expected a fair fight from a man who seemed to have no reason to take issue with him. That was his mistake. That was Q’s mistake as well.

_I don’t want to see him die! I want to see the Man with the Lion!_

Pleading took place in Q’s mind as he tried to get control of his thoughts and emotions, but no image of before or after the fight occurred. His mother died, then his brother, then his mother, then his brother over and over again in a loop until a foreign sound shattered the silence Q hadn’t known he was sitting in. The sound of a door slamming against the mirrored walls echoes through the quiet room and footsteps rushed closer to him. Q didn’t realize how much he was shaking until a hand clasped his own. For the second time, Q found himself clutching Bond’s arm, found himself listening to the other man’s heartbeat as he leaned against his chest.

_Thump-Thump. Focus. Thump-Thump. What did the wind see? A storm, a water basin, a Man with a Lion. He left my brother’s body. He fled behind a kingdom’s walls, to the sight and arms of a woman who called him Yvain. The walls bore a green sigil but now have a beige crest. A sign on the wall read Landuc. The Man with the Lion is alive. The Man with the Lion can be found. Thump-Thump. Landuc. Thump-Thump. Yvain. Thump-Thump-Thump._

The wind woke Q up. It brushed his fingers until they twitched, ran its streaks through his hair, whispered past his ears. He could still, however, hear the thrumming of a heartbeat.

“14,426,” Q mumbled as his eyes opened. His face was pressed tight to a tough, warm chest. Looking up, his eyes met with a mildly confused James Bond.

“What?”

“Heartbeats,” Q answered. “14,426 heartbeats. I was counting them while I was asleep.” The arm Bond had draped over Q’s shoulder pressed slightly tighter. “I was out for three hours.”

“Yes. I don’t think you were asking, though.”

“No.” Q remembered what he saw in the room and shifted his body just enough so his eyes met Bond’s without any strain on his neck. “Yvain.”

“That’s the Man with the Lion’s name?” Bond said, already knowing to what Q was referring.

“Yes. He’s in…”

“Landuc. I know.” Bond was staring into the distance, putting pieces together in his mind.

“Excuse me?” Q nearly shot up.

“I knew Yvain,” James began. “He and his cousin Calogrenant were knights of King Arthur’s court with me. The dream you had, on the ship, I know what that was now. Calogrenant told the Round Table a story, once, of a visit he made to Landuc. He had heard something about a water basin, a rumor that putting water in it from the nearby stream could start a storm.”

Q remembered his dream, and the basin, and something his brother had told him when they first set out.

“My brother used to guard it. The basin.” Q interjected. “He was guarding it to protect it from being misused. That’s what he told everyone, at least. He really did it to impress our father, to show him how noble he was. But then my father died, and he left to find me. He told me about it when he first found me. Funny, I still remember that.”

It took several seconds for Q to remember that Bond had been talking before he cut him off. “I’m sorry, you were speaking, please continue.” Bond nodded and continued.

“Calogrenant said he found the basin and succeeded in starting a storm, but that the knight who protected the basin was furious at him for misusing its powers and the two fought. Calogrenant was bested by this Black Knight, but the knight spared him. Yvain heard the story and seemed incredibly distraught that his cousin had been dishonored in battle. He left the court soon after and never came back. I never heard from him again, but when he was called upon to fight at Camlann we found out he was now king of Landuc. I suppose he still is.”

“Dishonored? My brother spared his life! You know what, he should have killed him! If he had killed him none of this would have happened! Yvain wouldn’t have found out and wouldn’t have come back! Why did Yvain have to come back? Why did Calogrenant even have to bother with that stupid water basin? What dishonor was there in sparing his cousin’s life when Calogrenant was in the wrong to begin with?”

“Calm down.” Bond pressed his hand to Q’s chest and forced the younger man back closer to him. Q hadn’t noticed that he had risen from his place. He wanted to convince himself he was angry, that it was fury which was consuming his soul. But it wasn’t. It was grief and despair and bitter heartbreak that his brother had been murdered for sparing another man’s life.

_The wind is picking up. It wants me to calm down too._

Q relaxed against Bond’s body in silence for a while. The older knight kept his hand on Q’s chest, and Q didn’t mind in the least. Half of his soul wanted to rush back to the ship and storm Landuc, but the other half was perfectly content to rest here, on his home, with James Bond. But the former half of his soul was winning, and he pushed past Bond’s hand while he rose to his feet.

James Bond looked displeased with this development, but he stood up as well.“This is the second time I’ve had to save you from yourself. You’re starting to make a habit of this, aren’t you?”

Q shot Bond a look. Bond was being sarcastic, but he looked unhappy anyway.

_What is he so upset about? We know who the Man with the Lion is, and where he is. It’s almost over. The wind is quiet, so few secrets left to tell. We’re almost done._

The trip back to the boat was silent, lacking the playful spirit from before. Q was too anxious to be agreeable, and Bond was still mulling something over in his mind. Q wished Bond would start a conversation, say something to amuse him, but he didn’t and Q didn’t and they made it back to the boat without saying a word. In honesty, Q was rather embarrassed at having to be saved by Bond again.

_That was the reason for his coming, after all, so why would I be upset about it? But then why has the only danger to me on this trip been myself? I just wish I knew where he and I stand._

“I’m sorry,” Q said stupidly when they got to the boat.

“Sorry?” Bond asked.

“About the House of Holiness. And last night on the ship. And I suppose a lot of things in general.” Bond wasn’t sure how to respond to this and Q couldn’t blame him.

“Can you steer the ship towards Landuc?” Bond asked, changing the subject.

_He’s upset with me?_

“Yes.”

“Good. We’re ready to go.” With that they were off, sailing towards the Man with the Lion, though that issue seemed far away to Q.

_I don’t understand. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how to fix this. Count. Count. Count. Count the gusts of wind, 43 so far; count the waves, 87 have hit the ship; count planks of wood, scraps of food, bits of money-_

“Money!” Q shouted out loud. Bond perked himself up from the other side of the ship where he had been fiddling with some rope.

“Are you alright-”

“Your money! I didn’t think- I completely forgot! No wonder you’re upset, you haven’t gotten paid! We have to go back.” The wind was listening and nearly changed direction before Bond grabbed hold of Q.

“Don’t be ridiculous, we’re already gone,” Bond said. “I don’t care about the money, I have plenty. It doesn’t matter. Why would I be upset? I think I’m fairly vocal, I would have reminded you if it had mattered, but it doesn’t, so calm down.”

“You have plenty?” Q asked, not removing his arm from Bond’s clasp. “Then what on earth are you doing all of this for? You were the one who suggested getting paid in the first place. Why did you even bother coming at all if you didn’t want anything?”

“Because a man showed up at my door and wanted help when all I wanted to do was sit in my room and act like the world was over. But it’s not over. You lost your brother like I lost my friends, and I could see that the same thing eating away at me was going to destroy you, and I wanted to help, but I haven’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s not the world that’s falling apart, Q, it’s you.”

_I want him gone. I want him here. I want him to go away. I want him to stay. Indecision never suited me, but it’s woven into my nature. I want my brother. That I know for sure._

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Bond still hadn’t let go of Q’s arm, but his grip was softer. “And going to Landuc is not going to make you feel any better.”

_Go away, go away, go away._

“Yes, it will.”

_Stay here, stay here, stay here._

Bond shook his head. “No, Fairy Knight. Achilles could drag Hector around the Trojan Wall as long as he wanted, but it was never going to bring Patroclus back.”

“Then he didn’t try hard enough!”

_It’s not the world._

“Calm down.”

_It’s me._

Q felt a tears forming in his eyes, hot and wet and unwanted. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go! This isn’t what you’re here for! You were supposed to protect me, and I was supposed to kill Yvain and everything was supposed to get better.”

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and I want it to stop!” Q’s voice felt dry and thick and broken.

_It hasn’t stopped yet. Nothing is making this better. Nothing ever will._

“How do you do it?” Q asked. “How do you live with this ache? When does it go away?”

“It doesn’t,” was the definitive reply. “But, sooner or later, you’ll get used to pretending it doesn’t hurt anymore. They call it healing. I call it coping. Difference of opinion, I suppose.” Q sniffled while Bond pulled him closer. Q enjoyed nothing more than being close to him, getting comfortable in his arms.

“I still want him dead,” Q whispered. “Even if it doesn’t bring my brother back.” Q felt a shrug as he said it.

“I can work with that. I would say Yvain has earned it.”

“You didn’t like him much?”

“Hated the bastard.”

“Good.” It was important to Q that Bond was alright with this journey. He couldn’t bear to rid Bond of another friend. He pulled himself slowly away from Bond’s embrace, the wind having been willed back into full power, speeding along towards Landuc. “You’re still an Immoral Inebriate.”

“Inapt Ingrate.” Bond pulled Q back to him.

“Impressive.” The word slipped out.

“Imp.” Bond put his hand around Q’s head.

“I—” Q was cut off by Bond’s mouth covering his. The kiss should have been brief, as first kisses usually are, but it wasn’t. Instead it lasted until Q’s mouth pulled away in surprise.“Oh.”

Q had been expecting Bond’s expression to be riddled with uncertainty. Instead he looked slightly more smug than usual. “You don’t know if that was a Good Oh or a Bad one yet!” Q protested.

There was a laugh and a smirk.

“Yes, I do.”

Q was shaking again, but no longer out of fear or anger or grief.

“I think you mean ‘maybe,’ James Bond.”

“Fine. I’ll kiss you, and whenever you make up your mind you can kiss me back. That’s fair enough.”

Q, again, had no time to protest as Bond grabbed him by the shoulders and removed the space between them. Perhaps now was not the time for such impositions, but Q had spent so much time by himself, and Bond had as well, and waiting for the correct moment was not part of either of their personality, so right now was as perfect timing as any had ever been.

_The wind is rising again. Is it rising with my breath? Or am I rising with it?_

An orange sunset dripped from the sky as Bond’s hands left Q’s where they were so he could wrap his own around Q’s hips. There was a silent desperation in both of them for affection, the broken parts of both their souls clinging onto the others. In terms of the physicality of the kiss, Bond was superior in every regard. He knew where to put his hands so they could almost become a distraction. He knew how to kiss while tilting up his head just the right way so his nose brushed against Q’s, drawing a smile and a gasp.

“Bedivere.” The word slipped from Q’s mouth to the air in a second. Perhaps he did it on purpose, to gain an upper hand, to get back in control of the situation, or maybe the word was strung out by the gasping wind that always got what it wanted.

The older knight paused. His mouth slipped away from Q’s while his breath steadied into sharp intakes. He seemed to be considering the current predicament Q had just posed.

“What?”

“No more running. Not more pretending. I am going to show you the same courtesy you have shown me and remind you that nothing we do is going to change the past. You can change your name, your location, your appearance even, but you are the same person you were before, just with different memories.”

A pause.

“Old memories,” Bond agreed. “I could use some new ones, I suppose,” he continued, the arms he had around Q’s waist tugging the pair closer together. Q had plans to say something else, but his mouth suddenly became occupied and it occurred to him that talking was an over-appreciated art anyway. More could be told in the motion of bodies than could ever be said through the movement of lips.

Minutes passed and starlight circled the pair before they could be bothered to come apart. It was almost perfect, just nearly, but something twisted at Q’s heart and mind, and his body obeyed the two accordingly.

“You’re holding back,” Bond mumbled against the rush of Q’s breath. Q separated himself slightly from Bond.

“I want him dead.” The words were pointed and Bond understood.

“More than anything else,” Bond finished for him, though Q had not asked for addition. “I remember the feeling.”

“Are you holding something back, too?”

“No.” There was no hesitation from Bond in answering the question, and he gave no indication that he was lying, nor did Q see any reason why he should, so Q let the matter drop, though his feelings lingered.

The two spent the evening not back in the beds below, but on the deck instead. A blanket had been found and the older knight tugged Q down to the floor to share it.  Bond was right, Q was holding back, even though he didn’t want to, but Yvain was still alive somewhere, lounging as a king in the kingdom where he had killed the Black Knight while Q suffered endlessly over his brother’s death. There were parts of his soul that just wanted to be with Bond; to leave behind this quest and be content to have someone to take care of him that he could care for in return. And yet, the larger parts of his soul screamed that Q shouldn’t be allowed to experience joy until his brother had been avenged. He hadn’t noticed how much his heart was fighting against his happiness until he started to want Bond more than he wanted to find Yvain.

“Tomorrow,” Q mumbled against Bond’s shoulder, their bodies intertwined on the ship deck. “Tomorrow Yvain dies and I’m free. Then you get all of me.”

Bond opened his mouth just slightly to say, “Then until tomorrow, I am still James Bond.” His mouth shut slowly and he shuffled his body so Q’s mouth was in line with his own. Not another word was spoken the rest of the evening.

The twilight sky melted into a burnt sunrise as the ship began to slow its pace. In one evening the Castor Pollux had travelled more miles than earthly possible, but its passengers seemed not to notice until the wind made a whisper.

_We’re here._

Q didn’t have to say anything, and Bond didn’t either before both of them had risen to get the ship ready for docking. The wind was restless, sharply tugging at Q’s hair so his vision became somewhat impaired. Auburn sunlight refracted off the waves, creating dancing lights on the dock while Q and Bond walked steadfastly forward to the green grass ahead. Q almost asked Bond what the sharp pounding noise he kept hearing was before it occurred to him that it was his heartbeat.

Last night the world had been a flurry of sensational and excruciating emotions and today was no different.

_It is as though the world is being held still by a taut piece of thread. The wind is stiff, the water is sharp, the air is cool glass ready to shatter into a storm of fragments._

“You have that look again,” Bond said and Q released a breath he had forgotten to let out.

“The counting look?”

“The anywhere-else-but-here look.”

“I am very much in the present, I assure you.” Bond did not seem assured, rolling his eyes and wandering closer to Q so their shoulders touched. Q thought back to the day before, the forest where the mood had been like molasses, stretching slowly and smoothly as the minutes melted by. Q wanted that again. He wanted to wander the forest and bump shoulders and kiss on ships at midnight.

_Why can’t that be enough? Why is nothing enough?_

A castle came into view over the stretching green hills, though not much of the castle was visible, as thick walls covered the perimeter. What could be seen, however, were the round towers that seemed to be built on the four ends of the stained white palace, which was built most obviously to be sturdy rather than beautiful.

“Quite the step down from the House of Holiness,” Bond commented as their knuckles connected. Q wanted to hold his hand. It would be less than a second, a fraction of a motion to lace their fingers, but Q didn’t. He felt trapped under the weight of his own emotions.

_Kill Yvain, and then be with Bond. Kill Yvain. Be with Bedivere. It’s a simple list._

Q battled the tangle of thoughts and emotions knotting up in his mind as he walked towards the castle, and for the first time he did not count as he went. Not trees, or birds, or leaves, or rocks, or specks of dirt. Nothing was asking to be counted. That fact disturbed him.

_The universe has never been so silent. And yet nothing ever happens in the world without a purpose. I am meant to understand something from this._

Part of his current counting predicament, however, stemmed from that lack of objects to count. Q had not made any motions towards attempting to imagine what Landuc would appear to be, but as far as he could see, and feel, there was a vastness of nothing. Even if he had begun counting there would be nothing to count but abandoned, ruined houses and endless empty fields.

“Why is there nothing?” The words did not come out half as articulate as they should have, but Q’s mind was beyond the concept of constructing sentences.

“As far as I heard Yvain left the court he ended up here and married the Queen. She was a sweet-tempered woman and Yvain took advantage of that. He took control of the whole kingdom and essentially ruined it. I suppose he thought he was going to be a great king, but when that didn’t work I suppose he went back to avenging his cousin.”

“He just left his whole kingdom?” Q asked. Bond nodded. “What about his people?”

“They left. By the time Yvain returned the entire population, small as it was, had up and gone” The few houses Q and Bond past looked as though they had been abandoned years ago, but certainly not in a hurry. All personal items had been removed from the small buildings, one easy sign to say that a person had moved of their own volition.

_What an awful lot he knows about Yvain._

Bond had not continued to tell his story, moving Q to prompt him for more details.

“And the Queen?”

“Lost her temper. She left, same as everyone else. God knows where she went, but she’s better off there than here. I heard a rumor that when Yvain came back and saw everyone gone he lost his mind.”

“He lost his mind far earlier than that.”

The conversation ended there.

The pair arrived before the towering walls surrounding the castle too soon and not fast enough for Q. Large, letters in faded green writing above the gates read:

CASTLE OF LANDUC

The enormous metal gates beneath the sign were notably open, revealing a clear path into the courtyard and through to the castle. Q bet the throne room was behind the dark wooden door the path before him led to. Yvain would be there.

_He dies today._

“Fairy Knight,” Bond said in the way people do when they are about to ask a question, with a slight vocal incline on the last word.

“Bond,” Q responded, startled to have his thoughts interrupted.

“Let me go in alone.”

“What?”

“I’ll go in. I’ll kill him. Wait for me outside-”

“No!” Q didn’t understand what Bond was telling him.

“You said yourself you can’t fight,” Bond said, calm and collected, as always. “Let me handle this by myself.”

_The earth is silent. The earth is hiding something from me._

“Why?”

“Q,” Bond started, but the other man didn’t give him time to reply before storming forward towards the castle door. The wind had suddenly picked up. Q pulled at the door, and the wind fought him over it.

_Something is wrong. Everything is wrong._

The wind was strong, but in this one instance, Q was stronger and the door tugged open to reveal a dark and unkempt room. It was larger, and grander, but to Q if felt almost like he was walking into Bond’s house all over again. Dust covered everything from the walls to the floor, with cotton-colored cobwebs decorating any corner possible. A row of columns created a pathway to a throne, positioned like a Greek temple to the gods.

A man was sitting on the throne. A lion sat beside him.

_The Man with the Lion._

“Can I help you?” The King called.

“No,” was the response. The earth was still silent, but Q might not have noticed because of the drumming in his ears. To the beat of his own pulse, Q began taking steps, marching forward to the constant thrum.

“Yvain!” Q called out, just to be absolutely certain.

“That is King Yvain of Landuc. Who addresses me as such?” Yvain called out, obviously perturbed by the use of only one name. “Step into the light, boy!”

He needn’t have asked as Q was already moving towards him, and before the King finished speaking Q had arrived in a spot of light produced by one of the six open windows from which the sun spilled through.

There was silence between the two, the pair matching the earth, and then an expression of recognition passed over Yvain’s face.

“You look like your brother.”

“You look like his murderer.”

Slow footsteps approaching from behind distracted Q from his current area of interest.

“Bond!” Q shouted.

“Bedivere?” Yvain did not rise from his chair in fear, but instead remained seated, seemingly pleased at the arrival of another knight. The old lion beside his feet, however, recognized the guest and rose slightly to greet the other knight as a friend.

Bond looked like a tamed hurricane, calmly sweeping into the room. He was so changed from those few days ago in that hovel.

“Are you here to kill me as well?”

_So he knows why I’m here._

“We’ll see how this goes.” That was not the response Q had expected from Bond.

“Well, Tom’s son here seems to have made up his mind on the matter.” The king’s voice was slurred but drawn out, like it took effort to speak but he thought it was worth it. His words also surprised Q.

“Why do you know who my father was?”

“Because I knew him.”

“How?”

“Your father was Tom a’Lincoln, a knight alongside Bedivere and I.”

_The earth is speaking again. The universe is screaming to drown out Yvain’s words._

“No. Bond would have told me. You would have told me if you knew my father!” Q had swerved his head to face the other knight in the room. There was a glint of hope on his face that Bond would say Yvain was not telling the truth, yet that same glimmer was not present in Bond.

“No. No, I wouldn’t have, and I didn’t.”

“Of course he wouldn’t!” Yvain exclaimed, still stumbling over words as he pushed to get them out. “Then he would have had to explain that he knew full well that I was the one who killed the Black Knight. I left Arthur’s Court with no uncertainty in anyone’s mind of where I was going and what I was doing. Off to kill that old fool Tom’s son that had dishonored my cousin. Bedivere, you were there when I left. I don’t remember you taking issue then.”

Q felt like the word shatter.

“You knew?”

“No, not at first. I suspected when you told me your dream, but I knew when you said your father was Tom.”

“No, you always knew.”

“I had a suspicion, the death sounded familiar—”

“How many men have a lion as a companion? How many kill the half-brother of the Fairy Queen’s son?”

“Q, I didn’t think—”

Q cut him off by removing the sword from Bond’s belt, returning his attention to the bemused king on the throne. His lion companion leapt up to defend his master, charging towards Q with growing speed. Q didn’t have any time to react, but Bond did, removing Q from harm’s way with a powerful shove.

“You are going to get yourself killed!” Bond declared as he attempted, unsuccessfully, to reclaim his sword from Q’s hands. Yvain remained seated, seemingly indifferent to the events occurring before him. Yet Q barely noticed this truth as he elbowed Bond directly in the nose.

“And why would you care!?” Q spat as Bond checked his nose briefly for blood. “You lied to me!”

“I never lied!” Bond shot back, also ignorant to Yvain’s indifference, or at least too preoccupied to notice the matter. “I never knew it was Yvain until we got to Fairy Land. Yvain must have left Arthur’s Court five years before your brother died, so why would your story have brought back a memory from all those years ago?”

Q’s pulse was pounding and his head ached from a migraine that had begun to torment him.

“You’re such a liar! Even still, you admitted that you knew when I told you my father’s name! Nothing stopped you from telling me then!”

“Everything was stopping me!” There was a storm of fury lacing both men’s words. “You were getting lost in this quest, and it would never bring you peace. Q, I lied to protect you!”

“You are not my brother!” Q suddenly screamed. He was trembling the same way he had after his nightmare on the ship. “I don’t need you to protect me from myself. I asked you to help me, not to save me. I didn’t ask you here to take his role!”

“You’re right. I’m not him, and I was never going to be,” Bond argued back. “But you did ask me to fill his role! I don’t think you ever needed me, you just deluded yourself into thinking you did because your brother had always been there! You wanted me to replace him, and I can’t. That’s not what I want from you, and certainly not what you need. I am trying to save you from ending up the way I did!”

“That’s not what I want anymore!”

“Well, that is all the service I am going to provide!”

“Then I guess I don’t need you!” The sting in Q’s words was almost tangible as Q readied himself to slash the knight with his sword, and then he stopped. Everything felt slow and drawn out, like time had paused for a brief second of reflection.

_What am I doing? What have I missed?_

Q turned his head away from Bond for the first time since they started arguing and saw the king sitting pleasantly in the same spot. Then Q noticed something he hadn’t before. A small basin sat to Yvain’s direct left, in reaching distance of Q, the glittering blue water swirling and churning within it.

_I know that basin. I remember that dream; that memory. It creates a storm. Think. Think. Think. What am I missing? Why create a storm outside- Wait. Is it ever specified where the storm takes place? An indoor storm? Think. Think. Think. An internal storm. A flurry of emotions. A hurricane of fear. An earthquake of anger. It can create a storm from within._

Bond seemed to have braced himself for Q’s attack, leaning back as far away as he could from the sword. Q raised the shining sword as high as he could, and brought it down with as much force as he could muster, the winds aiding in the weapon’s descent. But Q did not swing his sword at Bond. Instead, before Yvain had time to notice, the direction of the sword switched to smash down on the water basin. The impact of the sword on the basin was enormous, sending everyone present flying backwards. An echoing crack sounded throughout the hall as the sword shattered the basin into three separate pieces and a minor flood of water poured out. As it drained, Q could feel the change in his emotions. His pulse had stopped pounding. His head had stopped ringing.

_The storm has passed._

Bond took deep breaths of air in through his mouth as he felt his body drain of whatever emotions had become entangled inside him because of Yvain’s use of magic. Ignoring whatever other damage had occurred because of the basin’s destruction, he rose to his feet to check on Q, who had remained standing exactly where he had been throughout the whole encounter, seemingly impervious to the gust from the shattered basin.

“Are you—”

Q did not let him finish, pointing instead to the throne before both of them. Yvain still sat in his seat, the lion by his side, but his head was twisted too far to the right for any life to still be in his body.

“The impact, it snapped his neck,” Q said, sounding much stronger than he felt. There was a numbness running through his body, touching every vein and muscle he possessed. Yvain’s lion was unconscious, breathing noisily beside the throne, but this was of no concern to anyone. The lifeless body was instead the area of focus.

“Walk with me,” Bond invited Q, already turning to walk out of the castle.

Q did not follow. At least not immediately. He lingered, staring at the body with intense focus and purpose.

_Was I expecting something to happen? What did I want from this? Nothing has changed. Nothing at all._

When Q was satisfied that no drastic emotional change was going to occur, he turned to follow Bond out of the building. He caught up with Bond near the gates of the castle, and the two wandered and wandered and wandered over hills and through green grass until they reached a jutting cliff that reached out towards the shining sea.

“I held onto the sword,” Bond said at last as the pair of them gazed at the ocean.

“What?”

“Arthur’s sword. I held onto it for a while after Camlann,” Bond continued. “Arthur was mortally wounded when I last saw him and he told me to throw it into the lake, but I didn’t. I thought if I kept it, if I just had it with me, it would change something. If I had that sword it would eventually give me back what I had lost. And you know what? It did nothing. It was just a bit of steel engraved with stones.”

“So you threw it back?”

“So I let it go.”

Q turned to face James Bond at last. He wasn’t sure when he had started crying, but he was certain it had not been recently. He stretched his hand out to the other man’s hand, enclosing his own in Bond’s.

“I know why you lied. I might not agree entirely with why you did it, but I do understand.” Q was trying to speak without having his voice crack, but he was failing.

“Not that it did any good. All it really did was make things worse,” James admitted. “But I don’t regret it.” There was a pause of comfortable silence as Q used his fingers to trace the lines on Bond’s palm.

“My brother is dead.” Q did not say it the way he had back at Bond’s cottage. Then he had said it with passion, like it was something he could change. This time around it sounded defeated, and broken, and permanent. Bond nodded, and pulled Q closer to his body.

“Bedivere.” Q did not say it expecting a response, and the knight holding him did not hear it expecting to give one. There was a mutual understanding over the passing of that word. No more running for either of them; no more holding back; no more pretending.

_The Man with the Lion is dead. My brother is dead. Bedivere is alive. I am alive. Can this be enough?_

“What now?” Q asked, looking up into Bedivere’s eyes. Their faces were close enough so when their mouths moved to talk they pressed against the other’s lips. “You go back to your hovel and I go back to… whatever it was I had before all of this?”

“No,” Bedivere said rather definitively, but offered no alternate suggestions.

“Well, those were all excellent recommendations from you. I don’t know how I lived without your insights.”

Bedivere scoffed and rolled his eyes as his hand lifted to the back of Q’s head to push his mouth against the other’s. Q was getting better at this, raising both his hands to the side of Bedivere’s face, running his fingers through his hair as he pressed closer and closer.

_This is enough._

Then the earth, all at once, came back to life. Q counted the rocks and the clouds and the grass. He thanked the wind for its aid with the basin and it blew softer and warmer in response.

“Come with me,” Q said when the kiss had been broken and the elements had been sufficiently acknowledged. “We’ll go everywhere and anywhere. Just you and me.” Bedivere mulled over the option in his head before shaking it.

“No, Fairy Knight,” he responded. “I am not going to play pretend like I am your brother.”

“I don’t want you to be him. I want you to be you, exactly as you are. I want to hold hands, and bump shoulders, and surprise each other with what we can and can’t do. Yes, I did try to replace my brother with you, but I failed. I got Bedivere instead of the Black Knight, and I’m better for that. We both are, aren’t we?”

“God, no,” Bedivere replied, a grin spreading across his face. “I fear I am much worse off for having known you.” Q raised his eyebrows and huffed his breath out in exasperation. “But you, on the other hand, are twice the man you were when you showed up at my ‘hovel’, as you so politely put it. I can say my influence has at least improved you.” His voice was light as air as he tried to brighten the mood, but his words were sincere.

_Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. I am better for having you with me._

“All that positive influence could not prevent me from making the dreadful mistake of falling in love with you, Sir Bedivere,” Q admitted, a fraction of a smile climbing across his mouth. The playful phrase seemed to sober Bedivere up a bit.

“I cannot promise to make you happy. There is no magic cure that is going to make either of us feel better.”

“I don’t need to be happy or free from grief, the same way I don’t need my brother back. I need to be content and at peace, and I need you like the air we breathe.” Q’s words floated on the wind, his voice weightless at the release of all the pressure he had been drowning his emotions in. “So stay with me. Aren’t you as sick of grieving alone as I am?”

The smile on Bedivere’s face shifted with Q’s words. The playful smirk melted into something far more genuine, and a wave of relief washed over Q.

_People change. Like names. Like love. Like the wind. Change: Life and Death and the moments in between._

“I have made an awful mistake in falling in love with you, Fairy Knight.”

For the first time it was Q who initiated the kiss, a desperate mouth seeking connection with a soul as broken as his own. They could not fix each other, not in the way they might have wanted to be fixed, but they could find alternative pieces to the parts they had lost along the way. The pieces might not fit the way they did before, but they would make each other whole again and that was all either of them could ask for.

“Incorrigible knight,” Q whispered against Bedivere’s breath.

“Impetuous fairy,” Bedivere replied, a gentle smile dancing from Q’s mouth to his own.

They stayed like that for some time, the pair of them together on the cliffside where the wind, water and earth connected in harmony and chaos. The moments were perfect and undisturbed by the desire to appeal to the dead.

_The death of Yvain did not and would never satisfy me. But Bond, Bedivere, him, he can and will. The wind led me to him for a better reason than vengeance. I wish I had had the foresight to see it sooner. What I would give to have all those hours I wasted back._

The sun had climbed higher and higher into the sky as the hours blurred together when suddenly the sky filled with clouds. In less time than it took for Bedivere and Q to break apart, soft rain droplets began to fall from the sky. The wind picked up gently and pushed the pair away from the cliffside and towards the docks. Q smiled and took Bedivere’s hand, allowing himself to be moved by the elements as he looked up towards the sky.

“All right then. I understand. It is time to leave.”


End file.
